I’m feeling rather preoccupied at the moment. You see, my almost 5 year old nephew is in the hospital. He went in yesterday and they kept him overnight. I imagine he’s still there now.

His symptoms are (as I understand it) swollen knees and lower legs, splotchy skin on his legs, and broken blood vessel-looking patches behind his knees. It also comes with terrible pain and lots of grumpiness. The doctors are pretty much clueless, though their best guess at the moment appears to be rheumatoid arthritis of some sort. Specialists will be coming in today to check him out, and I think they should have tests back soon. Until then, all we have is wild speculation, which, in my “over-reaction is not only our middle name; it’s our lifestyle” kind of family, is dangerous. We have lots of time to think about the worst that this could be.

I’m going to write about the weekend to try to take my mind off, but please understand that it may not be with as much enthusiasm as usual. I’m sure you understand- you’re awesome like that.

On Saturday we did not see 13 houses like I wanted to. We saw 6. I think. You know, they all really kind of blend together after a while.

The one I liked would take so much time, money, and work that it’s just not practical. But it was the most charming, delightful little house you could ever hope for. It was old. REALLY old. It had all wood floors. The kitchen was small and had a built in table/bench thing that was just about the right size for a dollhouse. The refrigerator was really more like an ice-box. It came up to my chest, and the freezer part was a drawer on the bottom. I actually wondered if we would need to bring in huge hunks of ice to keep is cold. The cabinets had been built to only house that size of fridge. One of the cabinets in the kitchen only held the ironing board. In the den (that they were trying to call a third bedroom) there was a fireplace built out of native stones. It was beautiful. The fixtures all appeared to be original. They all matched and were bright brass colored metal with peach glass in sort of an art-deco style. It’s hard for me to impart to you the charm and beauty of this place, but it was from a time gone by. To use another cliche- they don’t make houses like this anymore. But it’s true- they don’t.

John’s favorite place was way up the hill into what I like to call “The Snow Zone.” I won’t be particularly charitable because I hated it, so John might get peeved that I told you it was his favorite. I understand why he liked it, and I agree with him up to the point of actually liking it, which I don’t. At all. It was a recently totally remodeled house, and they did a beautiful job of remodeling. It was gorgeous inside. Outside, however, was where it lost me. It was on a weird lot right on the edge of a fairly busy street. There was no yard to speak of. It was dark and cold, and it was obvious that the trees and the hill that it was built in front of made it impossible for direct sunlight to ever hit the house. It was depressing. I could feel that with the first snowstorm you’d find me typing “All work and no play make Dani a dull girl” over and over. “Darling. Light of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just gonna bash your brains in. I’m gonna bash ‘em right the fuck in. Ha, ha.” We’d never be able to own an axe.

Our favorite person that we met was a man that we later worked out must be 88 or 89 years old. He graduated from a local high school in 1936 and owned a gas station from 1969-1979. His wife broke her hip and he built her an elevator in the house. It still works. It’s a little scary, but it works. He was very proud of his house. He spoke lovingly of his wife and showed us some of the crafts that she had made that he still had up around the house. He had little squirrel friends that I think were about the only living creatures that he saw most days. He was tremendously adorable and I maybe tried to put him in my pocket to take home with me, but then who would feed his squirrels?

So there was really nothing much from that day that seemed promising. But I asked about two houses that we hadn’t seen that I was really wanting to and she said that she’d look into them.

I don’t remember much about Sunday. I was really out of it with a cold (still have it) and I think I had to go to WalMart at one point. That’s enough to make anyone want to forget. I won’t bore you with it any longer.

Monday I had the day off because Cole’s daycare was closed. We spent the whole day together and it was lovely. The Realtor called and we made an appointment for the afternoon to see the two houses.

I was really pleasantly surprised by the first one. It was in a great neighborhood in town, it was large, had a big back-yard, and didn’t seem too terribly overpriced. It needs some work, but I really think we could make something of it. I get more excited about it each time I think of it. I think we may have to put an offer on it. John hasn’t seen it yet, but I can’t find any reason why he would veto.

The other one we saw was a 3bd, 2ba manufactured home on 5 acres. It had a small orchard and well established fruit and nut trees. It was close to town. The land was very usable and totally beautiful. It came with three gorgeous big-horned sheep that were the natural weed-eaters (Cole squealed and wiggled like crazy when he saw them, pointing and yelling “Coco!Coco!” which is his new word for dog because our dog’s name is Yoko and the dog at his daycare is Cocoa). They wanted $299,000 for it (which is a very good deal, objectively). The catch? Our view would be of the city sewage treatment ponds. And not a far away view, either. Nope- right down the hill. YUMMY! I couldn’t smell anything when we were there, but I imagine that’s not always the case. On the bright side, we wouldn’t have to blame farts on the dog anymore. I also couldn’t stand the house, but that seemed beside the point. I just couldn’t live there. I really wanted to make myself be okay with it, but I just couldn’t.

So eight houses, one possibility.

That’s all I have energy for right now. If you happen to have any ideas about Spencer (my nephew) or know any good doctors who might have a clue, please leave me a comment or send me an email at heelsblog at gmail dot com.